The necessity of relocalization

[Richard Moore]

Richard Moore <r...@quaylargo.com> wrote to Sfpnotices:

Greetings,

My belief is that governments will not prove to be helpful in responding to the food emergency. They have signaled their responses, and they are thinking in terms of increased aid, and increased dependency on green-revolution methods. Those only make the problem worse, but the responses will be sold as doing something to help. Appeals to official channels will not be productive.

Yes, it is time for action, but I think the actions that are needed have to do with the relocalization of food sourcing, local production for local consumption, as a grassroots movement. If one Googles "relocalization" one finds many initiatives along these lines.

best regards,

richard

__________________________
Begin forwarded message:

From: Manuel Rozental <>

Date: 27 May 2008 13:00:52 IST

To: Richard Moore <r...@quaylargo.com>, Edwin Daniel <>

Cc: SfPnotices <sfpno...@physics.utoronto.ca>

Subject: Re: [Sfpnotices] Fwd: ETC Group: Call to Action on World Food Emergency

I couldn't agree more. The food crisis is a direct outcome of the food dependency created by subsidies and food donations for hunger, in-turn created by food production (monocultures and export production) imposed by thereafter "generous" donors (How the Other Half Dies, remember?), who imposed modern green revolution instead of "primitive and backward"  self-sufficient traditional peasant and indigenous-based diverse production to feed first and then sell. In time the giants (Monsanto, Cargill, ADM) took over almost completely from policy development to food market penetration, to feeding habits to transfering the risks of production to farmers , while imposing the amounts and types of food produced at huge ecological and economic expense for the producers and all global benefits for them.

 They promoted their components of neoliberal globalization policies opening markets for their subsidized food products, while imposing taxes, lack of credit and adverse national policies on local producers. Most Latin American countries that used to be the highest per-capita protein producers in the planet, have followed the same pattern. Concentrated and unequal land ownership, where the largest landowners don't produce food and the poorest and smallest landowners produce most of the food so that the land cannot be used to compete with the transnational giants of food production (unless they impose their terms and it will not be land to feed the poor) and the poor food producers are destroyed and displaced by policies, propaganda and forced displacement so that no competition against monopoly remains in place. 

The last blow are the necro (bio) fuels, where land is transformed into imposed energy producing crops. Production that does not prevent greenhouse gas emissions (sugar cane, corn, soybean, etc, plants do not produce ethanol or bio-diesel, these crops need to be grown with massive amounts of thereafter polluted water and petrol-made fertilizers and Monsanto made pesticides and GM seeds etc) and their products have to be transported into pumps at great distances consuming more gasoline and these crops occupy more good land and employ less workers while destroying forests and cultures of peasants whose knowledge has become essential to the survival of humanity and of life in the planet. All of this will now be "solved" by Mr Zoellick and his buddies in the agribusiness sector, and their servants and croonies in the US-EU governments through subsidized crops and gifts of food to the poor, which will allow the giants to sell their excess crops to the Governments (100% subsidies), dump these into the non-food producing countries (destined for necro-bio-fuels and no-food production) and further destroy whatever is left of autonomy and food sovereignty (culturally appropriate and independent of corporate and market manipulations)  in the name of food security (eat whatever there is regardless of how it gets to you and at whatever expense).

 Dumping will work. It will feed the hungry for a short while, change their starving habits and tastes, destroy peasantry and peasant economies, will be protected by free trade agreements and consistent legislation in favour of open markets that will benefit the import of monopoly transnational produced food and transform the rest of the land into for-export and necro-fuel crop production linked to production chains that have established the poor as value transferrers into the coffers of the wealthy. 

An we will say thank you to the food donors and to their governments and to the corporations and to the bleeding-heart liberals and to the scientists and to the NGO's who come to distribute food and we will not think the way I am thinking here because it will have become a moralistic issue "are you for or against feeding those who are starving?" or a political issue "will you feed people speeches of resistance or will you help to get our food into their mouths". So well will have to take the food and say thank you to those who starve us so they can feed us so they can starve us so they can feed us....while they kill the planet and kill most of the poor who are grateful, because those who murder and destroy do so by giving away almost nothing of what they took.

Either "relocalization of food sourcing, local production for local consumption, as a grassroots movement(s)" (GLOBALLY AND IMMEDIATELY) for food sovereignty works or we will get closer to global destruction for profit. Peasants and indigenous peoples are not the past and there is no future with agribusiness. Either a model of food sovereignty replaces the agribusiness model, or there is no future. Just as with climate change, water destruction, etc. Either mother earth is freed to be collectively owned and protected as territories for all forms of life within these or trans national capital will destroy it. The question is, what side of these fact are we on? 

Take care

Manuel

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